All posts by Tessa

To say 2016 has been a turbulent year is something of an understatement, but we at Let Toys Be Toys have been able to take heart from successes including Buster Books becoming the 10th publisher to agree to #LetBooksBeBooks back in January, and being awarded the BRIO Prize in February in recognition of our work for the benefit and development of children and young people. Most encouragingly of all, our research at the end of this year found that boy/girl signage in the toy aisles seems to be well on the way out. We’ve also had plenty of media coverage and ever more engagement from our fantastic supporters. So in a nod to everyone who has tweeted us and contacted us with pictures and stories of sexist and stereotyped toys, we bring you our annual silliness awards…

A magazine subscription is a great gift that will keep giving all year round, but many, if not most of the children’s magazines on the shelves fall back on tired old pink/sparkly and blue/camo stereotypes. We’ve picked out a few publications which appeal to boys and girls with different interests.

Children come to school to learn – what do they pick up in school about gender? Newly qualified teacher @genderclassroom tells us about their first year in the classroom, how children are learning and applying the ‘gender rules’, and how boys and girls are treated differently, even by staff who believe they’re even-handed.

Since we launched our books campaign on World Book Day 2014, ten publishers have agreed to Let Books Be Books. Two years on, who are the publishers still labelling books ‘for girls’ or ‘for boys’?

We are delighted to announce our first brand new Toymark winners of 2016. Our good practice award recognises toy retailers and booksellers who are marketing inclusively to all children, without ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ labels or colour-coded signage.

We are pleased to say that UK children’s books publisher, Buster Books, an imprint of Michael O’Mara, has become the tenth publisher since our campaign began to ditch gendered book titles and agree to “let books be books”.

Working on the principle that if you didn’t laugh, you might cry, it’s time to look back in amusement, and indeed some anger, at the worst that’s been thrown at us in terms of tortuously gendered products and sexist shenanigans in 2015.

It’s been another terrific year for the Let Toys Be Toys campaign and our offshoot, Lets Books Be Books, with some notable successes including Usborne and Ladybird Books, not to mention plenty of publicity and media attention.

Nonetheless every day we receive tweets and images from our supporters showing that our work is far from done. So, as last year’s Silliness Awards proved so popular, we have once again reviewed the year to bring you the most nonsensical, convoluted and downright ridiculous examples of gendered marketing that 2014 had to offer.